With the continuous development of applications of the concept of digital homes, the good experience of Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) devices is undoubtedly a major selling point of the DLNA devices as devices directly oriented to users.
The DLNA devices include the following types: home network devices, mobile handheld devices, and interoperable home devices.
The home network devices include: Digital Media Servers (DMS), Digital Media Players (DMP), Digital Media Renderers (DMR), Digital Media Controllers (DMC) and Digital Media Printers (DMPr).
The mobile handheld devices include: Mobile DMSs (M-DMS), Mobile DMPs (M-DMP), Mobile Digital Uploaders (M-DMU), Mobile Digital Downloaders (M-DMD) and Mobile Digital Media Controllers (M-DMC).
The interoperable home devices include: Mobile Network Connectivity Functions (M-NCF) and Mobile Interoperability Units (MIU).
The DMSs may be any devices with a file storage function among DLNA interconnecting devices.
The DMPs may be any devices with a display function and an audio and video playing function among DLNA interconnecting devices.
The DMRs may be any devices with a function of decoding audio and video coding among DLNA interconnecting devices.
Three interaction methods for playing a media resource are stipulated in DLNA protocols.
1. A DMS may initiatively push a stored audio or video file to any DMR device to be played.
2. A DMP may initiatively search and select the audio or video file in the DMS so as to play the audio or video file.
3. A DMC may read an audio and video file list in the DMS and push the selected audio or video file to the DMR to be played.
In existing DLNA applications, an audio or video file in a DMS may be played in different DMPs or DMRs, and a breakpoint continuous playing function has been implemented in some environments for playing programs. However, a DMS may belong to a public device, and different DMPs/DMRs correspond to different holders. Therefore, a breakpoint may be overlapped if different DMP/DMR holders play the same video file in the DMS, and a video played continuously from a breakpoint by a DMP/DMR holder is not played from a breakpoint stored previously by the DMP/DMR holder. Similarly, a DMP/DMR, which is portable, may be connected to different DMSs in different environments. If users in a DMS need to play the same video, the DMP/DMR will fail to start a breakpoint continuous playing function, thereby resulting in bad user experience.
Therefore, it is urgent to provide a DLNA-based multi-breakpoint technology for continuous playing a media resource in a plurality of intelligent devices.